windows 8 restarted the boss's computer without the option to postpone it and lost everything open. This is such a fatal flaw we are not going to roll out windows 8 until we have confirmed this is fixed at any of our clients. What a disaster! There is no obvious way to disable this! Please show us where to set it in group policy or in the settings to ban this behavior, I can't believe windows shipped without this being fixed!

It is not normal behavior of Windows 8, whenever Windows 8 wants to restart it notify user for update it will give two days before restart.

Take a look at BIOS setting and there could be a timer there or there could be an application cause this behavior.

Check event viewer and schedule in the PC.

Have you tried checkin the event logs?

This could also be some form or Malware.

Updates should'nt restart the PC without warning.  

Hi Aaron,

I don't know if this still applies to Windows 8, but still it worth checking, see this article: How to Avoid forced restart after Windows Update

It's very, very strange it happened to Windows 8 computer because protection from these forced restarts is one of the new features to Windows 8: Windows 8 will not automatically restart your computer after installing an upda

You know what? Try checking settings for this group policy: No auto-restart with logged on users for scheduled automatic updates installations, see here for details.

Check Event Log and see if you encounter BSOD issue and if so, refer to the following article to find the root cause.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315263?wa=wsignin1.0

Are you POSITIVE that your boss wasn't annoyed for two days before it rebooted?

They made a HUGE change in how rebooting and prompting for rebooting occurs - http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/11/14/minimizing-restarts-after-automatic-updating-in-windows-update.aspx

Post up your windowsupdate.log file please.

Hi,

Are you sure it was caused by a Windows update?

Those unexpected reboots may also be caused by an overheated CPU, drivers BSOD, etc.

Download HW Monitor and view your CPU and GPU temps.

It could be an airflow problem or a poorly seated CPU.

Unfortunately, this is normal behavior for Windows 8 and is a flaw that has to be fixed. I have a computer Repair company and have sold about 20 laptops with Windows 8. More than half of them have restarts in the middle of installing something without warning to install updates. About 5 minutes ago, I was installing AVG and it rebooted half way through. If there is a way to turn it off...that would be awesome! SP1 better fix it or they will have trouble convincing people to roll it out in their businesses or personal use for that matter. This laptop was just delivered to me yesterday and did not give the 2 days warning or option to postpone.

SP1 won't fix diddly since Microsoft is not seeing this.  Brandon can you email me some sample windowsupdate.log files of machines having this behavior?  I'm not seeing it and I have Win8 machines under my control.

Two days (or two years)  notice doesn't help if you never use the windows 8 shell... 

Besides - Windows SHOULD NEVER pull the plug...  It should ask me )even if every 5 minutes) to reboot... 

Every couple of Tuesdays my laptop has rebooted and I've LOST data!!!!

I'm seriously regretting moving up from Win7...  No added features make up for the issues created by win8...

ADDED features !!!!!

dont you mean removed features.

Try playing a DVD in any version of windows 8   that possibilty has been removed.

Go to the metro menu and click on email  ... it only allows you to use hotmail addresses   wow so useful   NOT

from the metro menu click on internet. it opens IE10 and removes the menus and your favourites  pushing F11 to get off full screen doesnt do anything.

well dont MS i wouldnt have thought of doing that  ... really excelent idea.

I cant be bothered with the rest. i grabbed my image and and put my laptop back as it was.

I consult and i have advised all my clients not to go with windows 8.

MS needs to get its head out of its arse and do something.

I already did a migration from MS SQL to linux and MYSQL saving the client over 900k in license fees

Two days (or two years)  notice doesn't help if you never use the windows 8 shell... 

Besides - Windows SHOULD NEVER pull the plug...  It should ask me )even if every 5 minutes) to reboot... 

Every couple of Tuesdays my laptop has rebooted and I've LOST data!!!!

I'm seriously regretting moving up from Win7...  No added features make up for the issues created by win8...

Why not turning off autoupdates? Let the user decide if he wants to update, or else install updates via GPO by a predefined schedule.

If you want to decide when to install updates, change the option in Windows Update.

If you ignore the warnings for three days that you need to reboot, Windows will reboot. Solution is to not ignore the warning to reboot.

No, the solution should be to leave the decision as to what to do in the hands of the user.  If they don't want to reboot, don't make them reboot.  If they had left the 1hr/4hr prompt in windows 7, that would have been fine.  Eventually the user will reboot to get the popup to go away.  But by pulling the plug forceably, Microsoft has stated that they could care less what you are working on, and who cares if you need your system to work right now, it doesn't matter that you have a user on the other line that you are trying to support.  (In some cases this is an emergency situation) and you can't just tell a customer "hold on, I only have 15 minutes to reboot my computer" or "hold on, my computer just shut down while I was working remotely on your system", or hold on, I need you to wait for my computer to do updates.  That is not how a business OS should (or can be allowed) to operate!  I have been burned by this several times, because you don't always see the "two day" warning until it is rebooting your system.

And while I'm ranting, this is basically become Microsoft's philosophy, that they are going to dictate how the end user uses a product they purchased.  They want to control all the decisions for the end user.  Just look at the Xbox One debocal.  They have no idea what the consumer or what businesses want.  You can't tell me how to use a product that I own.  I will either find a way to hack it so it does what I want, or I will use another product.

Maybe Microsoft's answer to this "force log off" issue in Windows 8 is similar to their answer to those who do not like the stipulations put in place for the Xbox One - just use the old item.  (Xbox 360, or in this case Windows 7.)

I know this is a total rant, and probably a bit off topic, but as much of a fan as I am for the new OS (I have been using it since August last summer, 2012, when my company first made it available for testing), I really don't like the attitude that I'm seeing from Microsoft with its latest versions of products.  The computer should allow the user to be productive, not destroy data because he got involved in something in the first 15 minutes of the business day and forgot to wait to start working while his computer rebooted.

Please, Microsoft, listen to frustrated customers.  There are better ways to do this than just shutting down without giving the user a choice to postpone.  And that is the crux of the matter here!

Same just happened to me - Windows 8 Pro. Was in the middle of a software installation. End result? Windows fails to start due to corrupt system files.

I find this absolutely incredible that such a massive flaw exists. I turned windows update off altogether now. Thanks for that.

EDIT: No previous warnings either.